An Open Letter to Lady Gaga

Dear Lady Gaga,

I, like my thirteen year old daughter, really dig your music. I have been lately thinking that your song “dirty, dirty, rich” was written to alert us Americans about the latest fossil fuel peddlers “crack” to feed America’s oil addiction. If I am right, that is really cool.

This “oil on steroids” is mixed with so much sand that it has to be literally melted out of the ground in massive pots. This melting process uses tons of energy before we even start talking about “burning” it. In fact, nothing better describes this whole insane process as your use of “dirty, dirty.” The “dirty” stuff, called tar sands spews three times more harmful pollutants into our air than the already “dirty” oil we all burn in our cars, trucks and businesses today. Thus, “dirty, dirty” is just genius.

I also love your clever ending: “dirty, dirty. RICH!” TransCanada and other tar sands exploiters — are making so much money off this “dirty, dirty” tar sands oil that even you, despite all your chutzpah even you might blush.

Oh, I don’t want to forget to your awesome crescendo – “Beautiful”. That is what we lose if we allow the tar sands industry to have its way – our earth’s most precious boreal forests. These forests are home to a vast array of wildlife (much like your music videos), like the arctic fox (yeah the cute white one that roams the tundra looking for food to stop itself from turning into a block of ice). The forests also serve as a blanket that keeps the earth cool (the opposite of our blankets that keep us warm at night – no joke here). If the tar sands industry has its way, these forests will be converted to a big scraped earth mud puddle absorbing the sun’s rays and further warming the world.

All told, I am thinking that you could put together this all together in one of your amazing costume and dance routines (loved the egg thing) where all this complicated earth stuff is better explained than humble I could ever do.

Now, that the true meaning of your hit song is out, I am wondering if you could join me and the National Wildlife Federation in putting a spotlight on this urgent situation so we don’t pollute our world and make TransCanada “dirty, dirty, rich” in the process. Give me a call. Talk to you soon.

Signed,

Curtis (your 43 year old dad fan)